God willing, out of love, that all his children be saved, does not mean that all of them will be saved even when they deliberately choose sin.
Newsroom (02/11/2022 9:30 PM, Gaudium Press) I finished a previous article by advancing the subject of this one, something that is not usually the case. However, for some time now, some questions have been echoing in my mind, especially after watching some so-called Catholic content on the internet: Is hell empty? Is hellfire metaphorical? Is hell just a figure of speech, the element of a parable? Does hell exist or did Jesus lie?
Many popes and theologians of the stature of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas were concerned to affirm that hellfire is real and corporeal, and for a long time this truth of faith was not questioned, until, for convenience, heresies began to arise in opposition to this, and the most modern of these heresies is that everyone will be saved because hell does not exist.
The Same Fate?
Obviously, it is very consoling to believe that, no matter what we do, God is merciful and will take everyone to Heaven. Something that works more or less like the continuous progression adopted in education: it doesn’t matter if the student learns or not, if he gets good grades on the tests or if he is always below average, in the end, everyone passes, everyone is approved, because the educational system has established that failure is harmful to children and young people, and leads to school dropout – and because, for reasons of international politics, there is an incentive for education to be conducted in this way, and this doesn’t only happen in Brazil or Canada but around the world in many countries.
Although I am not an educationalist, I am in touch with many educators who say that this policy, far from improving the uninterested and undisciplined students, ends up discouraging the studious and dedicated ones, and leveling things down, worsening the level of education even more. After all, if by doing or not doing the lesson, studying or not, having good or bad behavior in class, everyone will pass the year the same way, why study, make an effort, obey?
The same goes for the belief in hell. What is the point of acting well, being correct, worthy, avoiding sinful occasions, loving your neighbor, being pious, praying, attending the sacraments, making charity, sacrifices and renunciations if, in the end, the holiest and the worst sinners will have the same fate?
There were times when heresies were fervently fought, heroic Christians were able to give their lives fighting heresies, however, today, the mere mention of this expression sounds abusive and outdated, and absurd and anti-Christian beliefs spread even among members of the clergy.
Is Hell a Metaphor?
The non-existence of hell is not a position defended by the Church, but unfortunately, there are very well-known priests and opinion makers, who propagate that hell is a metaphor or, if they agree that it exists – after all, it is difficult to deny a concept that appears more than 50 times in the Bible – they claim that it is empty. With this, they testify against God, who would have created something useless and purposeless, and they also claim that Jesus lied, since He was the one who warned the most about the existence of hell and the possibility of eternal damnation.
Avoiding relying only on my own opinion, I propose a reflection on the statements of some Catholic thinkers, based on the Magisterium of the Church. According to Cardinal Gaspani who is a Thomist theologian, regarding Hell, one must believe, with divine faith:
1 – That hell exists consisting of demons and those who died in mortal sin, even if it were only one.
2 – That in hell, the condemned are tormented by a double penalty: the penalty of loss and the penalty of senses, the latter being mainly fire.
3 – That the punishments that the damned in hell serve are eternal and will never end, nor be lessened.
4 – That they are not the same penalties for all, but different, according to the number and seriousness of the sins that merited eternal damnation.
There are several notions about the materiality of hellfire, since souls are incorporeal, so they could not be harmed by fire. What it is like, we cannot know, nor does it make much difference if we know, because that is something we will only know by going there, a matter about which I prefer to spend eternity in ignorance.
God will Reward Each According to his Deeds
To doubt the existence of hell is the same as denying the sacrifice of the Cross. Yet, the way things are going, with priests more concerned with canvassing votes for this or that candidate than with living fully the sacred mystery of the Eucharist and the proclamation of the Gospel, it won’t be long before the propagation begins that even the physical existence of Jesus and Mary may be metaphorical concepts.
In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul announces that God’s goodness and forbearance invite us to repentance, but he warns, “By your stubbornness and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath against yourself, for the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds.” (Rom 2:5-6)
And it is the same Apostle who states that “At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and in hell” (Phil 2:10), which shows that he understood and believed Jesus’ message, or perhaps, according to reasoning by modern Internet theologians, not only did Jesus lie, but his main followers and pillars of the Church were mistaken.
St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas defended the existence of hell and eternal penalties. Were these great scholars, men full of holiness and wisdom, also mistaken?
The Creed of St. Athanasius, which is part of the liturgy and doctrine of the Church, says that “all men will rise with their bodies and give an account of their own deeds; and those who have done good will go to eternal life; those who have done evil, on the contrary, to eternal fire. This is the Catholic faith: whoever does not believe faithfully in it cannot be saved.”
And this knowledge continued until, based on non-Catholic concepts, some religious people decided to abolish hell and eternal damnation, in the name of a loving and good God.
There is no doubt that God, who is a loving, just and good Father, does not want any of his children to go astray. It is His desire that all be saved, and to this end, He gave Himself, His own Son, ending His life on an infamous cross. But His desire, out of love, that all His children be saved, is not the same as saying that all of them will be saved even when they deliberately choose sin. The sowing is free, the reaping, obligatory, and he who plants nettles will not reap sunflowers.
But let us know rely on the words of theologians, however great in stature, or even in St. Paul, what did Jesus himself say?
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Cursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels” (Mt 25:41).
“The Son of man will send his angels, and they will remove from his kingdom all who cause one to fall into sin and all who do evil. They will cast them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 13:41-42).
These statements may be painful, but they are not Fake News, and there is no shortage of warnings to avoid such a fate for our souls. Denying that hell exists does not make it not exist, just as a child afraid of the dark, by closing his eyes, does not make the dark disappear.
I started this reflection with questions, and with questions I close it: does anyone who denies hell really believe in God? After all, who does he serve who says that hell does not exist, even if it is a priest who says so? And, if many unwary souls walk to hell for believing in anything, without any criterion, it is certain that, there, those who led them to believe in such heresy will keep them company.
By Afonso Pessoa, originally published on gaudiumpress.org
Compiled by Camille Mittermeier.
